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119059-boa-gear-alt-endgame-incentive
Content ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- It doesn't now, but if the queues return to normal for any significant lenght of time then we'll have a problem. Though to be honest PvP queues can be solved by making PvP normalize everyone up to level 50. Kind of like Guild Wars 2. Low level dungeons would remain relevant if their rewards were better than the "heirlooms", for sure, but, again, if the queues return to normal for more than a day then peopel will start getting elitist about gear and demand them. Not because they might be the -best-, mind, but because they'd be comparatively easy to acquire. Nobody expects someone to run a low level dungeon in pure blue gear because the only way to achieve that is to run the dungeon. But they are still expected to some degree to bring the best gear they can. Heirlooms would become that: the best gear available. I will admit this is highly dependant on the community, however. Maybe Wildstar's low-level playerbase is nice enough to not fall into this. Maybe. | |} ---- ---- One of the benefits of BOA gear is that it puts current players back in the world where new players will actually see folks leveling (and potentially have some beefy players to help them if needed). What you're pointing out doesn't really conflict with the concept of BOA gear. Rather, if we want more players, we need to show them that alts and endgame are both healthy. It's not like Carbine is going to pick one thing for development. :P They're always working on multiple ways to improve the game, so it's completely reasonable that they can put resources into recruitment while also putting resources into something like BOA gear. Significantly altering the current world/quests would be a lot more demanding than making a handful of gear pieces though, I think. And it doesn't change the play experience, would only diversify it. My criticism and this suggestion aren't about leveling being hard, they're about it being not fun for a portion of the player base. BOA gear has the potential to make leveling fun for those of us who want a more action-based, fast-paced leveling experience; more like Diablo but with the benefit of having an extended cast of characters for endgame stuff. And again, this is accomplished without changing the world itself for players who aren't interested in an adjusted play experience (and can therefore just put their playtime into something other than getting BOA pieces). This isn't supposed to be a 'more than' solution to anything, keep that in mind. BOA gear is a simple, isolated implementation that doesn't change a lot of stuff and is controlled by the individual. I've not argued that it's going to make solo or casual play suddenly blow up— my point is that BOA gear has two great benefits right now: Something to chase at endgame, and something that improves the leveling experience for those of us who aren't happy with it in this specific context (affected by gear). As I mentioned to Naunet, relevant to your ideas about new leveling paths, that's a big thing that requires big change and affects all of us. That's not the degree of complexity I'm after. :P For the queue thing, it seems a bit, well, unreasonable to me to avoid doing something that could help the game in a few ways because it might someday affect what's not really likely to ever happen. Let's be honest here: Lowbie queues have been borked for a long time, I'm talking back at launch even. Adventures, fine, whatever, but no one's going to gripe about players in adventures not wearing heirlooms, they're easy already. But we're not going to see some sudden surge of interest in lowbie dungeons on any meaningful level (which is what it would take to cause some elitist hate for non-BOA players). Your point is well taken, but WoW was a very different story. This is obviously just opinion and part of my argument, but Wildstar is not remotely in the same position WoW was in ten years ago. I honestly think that right now this MMO is in the most precarious position of all MMO titles in the triple-A market: It has none of the brand power of its predecessors and has a months-long train of bad news leading to drop 3, which was not a big hit with the general gameplay crowd. Not a fail or anything, but is anyone going to claim Wildstar is thriving or even growing right now? I'm certainly against free level 50s-- there's no work involved on the player's part. I see BOA gear as being significantly different though. Bureaucratic nightmares aside the first piece or two could be implemented with drop 4. | |} ----